I was recently
granted a rare glimpse behind the official façade of the EU when I
met with its Trade Commissioner in her Brussels office. I was there
to discuss the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
the controversial treaty currently under negotiation between the EU
and the USA.

As Trade
Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström occupies a powerful position in the
apparatus of the EU. She heads up the trade directorate of the
European Commission, the post previously given to Peter Mandelson
when he was forced to quit front line politics in the UK. This puts
her in charge of trade and investment policy for all 28 EU member
states, and it is her officials that are currently trying to finalise
the TTIP deal with the USA.

In our meeting, I
challenged Malmström over the huge opposition to TTIP across Europe.
In the last year, a record three and a quarter million European
citizens have signed the petition against it. Thousands of meetings
and protests have been held across all 28 EU member states, including
a spectacular 250,000-strong demonstration in Berlin this weekend.

When put to her,
Malmström acknowledged that a trade deal has never inspired such
passionate and widespread opposition. Yet when I asked the trade
commissioner how she could continue her persistent promotion of the
deal in the face of such massive public opposition, her response came
back icy cold: “I do not take my mandate from the European people.”

So who does Cecilia
Malmström take her mandate from? Officially, EU commissioners are
supposed to follow the elected governments of Europe. Yet the
European Commission is carrying on the TTIP negotiations behind
closed doors without the proper involvement European governments, let
alone MPs or members of the public. British civil servants have
admitted to us that they have been kept in the dark throughout the
TTIP talks, and that this makes their job impossible.

In reality, as a new
report from War on Want has just revealed, Malmström receives her
orders directly from the corporate lobbyists that swarm around
Brussels. The European Commission makes no secret of the fact that it
takes its steer from industry lobbies such as BusinessEurope and the
European Services Forum, much as a secretary takes down dictation.
It's no wonder that the TTIP negotiations are set to serve corporate
interests rather than public needs.

At some point in the
next two years, the people of Britain will be asked whether they wish
to leave or remain in the EU. I am proud to be a European, and have
no truck with the xenophobic scaremongering of those little
Englanders who would close our borders. I believe in a people’s
Europe, a social Europe where we can work together with others across
our continent – and outside it – to build a common future beyond
the business interests of a tiny elite.

Yet the question we
will be asked in the referendum is not whether we wish to remain
Europeans, as if such a question could have any meaning. Rather, we
will be asked whether we wish to remain subject to the institutions
of the European Union, including the unelected Commission. As the
people of Greece have learned through bitter experience, those
institutions will not tolerate any reform or deviation from their
blueprint of permanent austerity and corporate rule.

TTIP offers a
glimpse of the nightmare that the European Commission has in store
for each one of us. Cecilia Malmström has shown the contempt with
which she and her fellow commissioners view the European people. We
have been warned.

To add your
signature to the European people’s petition against TTIP, or for
more information, go to waronwant.org/ttip

John Hilary is
Executive Director at War on Want. Follow him on Twitter: @JHilary